MARRIED TO THE GAME: Giants punter and field-goal holder Steve Weatherford’s wedding ring can be plainly seen as he celebrates Lawrence Tynes’ game-winning field goal in the NFC Championship Game.AP

FOXBOROUGH, Mass. — Faith drives and defines James Ihedigbo as powerfully as anything in his life.

Ihedigbo isn’t a superstitious athlete, but he does have one ritual he follows religiously every week during the football season.

“Before every game, I call my mother and we pray together,’’ Ihedigbo told The Post yesterday. “I’ve been doing that before every game since I was in college.’’

On game days, the call is made about three hours before kickoff. Ihedigbo, who joined the Patriots as a free agent this season after four years with the Jets, and his mother, Rose, spend several minutes praying together.

“James cherishes that time; it’s something that motivates him,’’ Rose Ihedigbo said by phone yesterday from her home in Maryland. “It’s our ritual. No matter where we are he’ll call me and we’ll pray.’’

Rose Ihedigbo recalled only one day her son failed to call her before a game. In that game, an Oct. 18, 2009 overtime loss to the Bills, Ihedigbo was ejected for punching a Buffalo player, fined by the league and benched for the next game by Rex Ryan.

“When we spoke after that, he said, ‘I know mom, we didn’t pray,’ ’’ Rose Ihedigbo said. “We are strong faithful people. We trust and believe in what God can do in one’s life.’’

That faith and belief has influenced Ihedigbo his entire life, carrying him through his life as an underdog who went to UMass as a walk-on and then worked his way into the NFL as an undrafted free agent.

A week from Sunday, he will start at safety for the Patriots against the Giants in Super Bowl XLVI.

Rose Ihedigbo, who has attended almost every game that James, the youngest of her five children, has played since Pop Warner, is hard-pressed to figure out how things can get any better than they did in last Sunday’s AFC Championship.

“Two days before the Baltimore game I texted James and said, ‘I have a special request: Can you sack Flacco for me?’ ’’ she said. “He texted me back, ‘LOL, I promise I will, mom.’ ’’

Ihedigbo delivered on his promise with a key second-half sack of Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco.

The fact he played and excelled at UMass (where he served as Giants receiver Victor Cruz’s student host before Cruz enrolled there) and overlooked by the Patriots, the team he rooted for as a youth, still chafes Ihedigbo to this day.

“It’s part of the business,’’ Ihedigbo said diplomatically. “Everything worked out for the best. I’m here now.’’

He’s here in large part because he was such a good special teams player with the Jets that Bill Belichick couldn’t get him to New England fast enough.

“I personally couldn’t stand that guy when he played for the Jets, because he was such a terror out there,’’ Patriots Pro Bowl special teamer Matt Slater said. “One of the happiest days I’ve had around here was seeing him walk into this locker room.’’

Ihedigbo is an appreciative soul, the kind of guy who never forgets where he came from and is proud of it.

“I always considered myself an underdog,’’ he said. “I’ve always had to work harder than everyone else. I didn’t always have opportunities others did.’’

Ihedigbo gets that drive and those values from his father, Apollos, who died of kidney failure in 2002 after having gone back to his native Nigeria to open a school for the underprivileged.

“I’m definitely humbled by the road that’s taken me to get here,’’ Ihedigbo said. “It’s a road that not too many people travel, but I had to and I’m happy that I did because it’s built me into the player and person I am today.’’